Broward schools looking to get about 10,000 students back into the classroom

Between 300 and 400 educators fanned out across neighborhoods in Broward County on Saturday, going door to door trying to reach thousands of students who have either not shown up for school or have attended class sporadically since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The goal is to get as many of them as possible back into the classroom because experience through the pandemic has shown that children learn better when they’re in front of a teacher. The task is monumental, however, given that the list of students they’re trying to reach includes about 10,000 children, schools officials say.

“And, these are going to be students from two different areas,” said interim Superintendent Vicki Cartwright. “In other words, it’s not just children who did not return to school. It’s also students who are not attending school on an everyday basis. They maybe showed up a day or two for school and we didn’t see them again.”

Broward County Public Schools is the sixth-largest district in the nation, with 204,000 traditional public school students and about 260,000 students altogether when counting those attending public charter schools.

The teachers, counselors, principals, School Board members and Cartwright herself broke up into small groups methodically ticking off addresses as they went house-to-house knocking on doors and ringing bells Saturday.

The job was akin to sales cold calling. Getting just a few positive responses is considered a success.

“I’ve been doing this for decades with the political thing, and you’re lucky if you get four or five people that answer a door,” Broward Teachers Union President Anna Fusco said as she walked away from a home where no one came to the door. “They’re not home, they’re scared, they don’t want to. I was expecting out of 30 homes maybe I’d get 10 people who answered.”

The educators left literature explaining how to get their children back into the school system at the doorsteps of homes where no one answered.

By Saturday evening, Fusco and Sea Castle Elementary School teacher Liliana Ruido had engaged with one family who they were able to convince to bring their children back to school. Some of the other people on the list answered the door only to say that their children were back in school or that the students named on the list no longer lived at that home.

“It makes me feel very sad to begin with, because students learn better in the classroom, one-on-one with the teachers and their classmates instead of keeping them at home,” Ruido said after leaving an unresponsive home.

To the parents who are receptive, Cartwright said the plan is to not only explain to them why it’s important to get their children back into the classroom, but also to listen to their concerns.

“What can we do to ensure that we’re able to support you, provide you with the resources that are necessary for you to be successful, and just have that human touch? Because, sometimes that’s what it takes,” she said. .

Just because a student has not returned to Broward public schools doesn’t mean that child is not being educated, officials acknowledged. They could have enrolled in a private school or have moved out of the area. But, part of this weekend’s effort was to find out.

“Because, when you don’t know where they are, you really don’t know what circumstance they’re in,” said School Board member Debra Hixon, who was among the canvassers Saturday. “We would love for them to come back into the Broward County Public School system. But, at the end of the day, it really is just trying to reconnect and engage with our students to make sure that they’re okay.”

Miami-Dade County

In Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the largest school district in the state and fourth largest in the nation, the academic year began in late August with more than 23,000 students who were expected to attend class never showing up, said district spokeswoman Daisy Gonzalez-Diego.

She said the district engaged in “an all-hands on deck approach” to locate most of these students and bring them back to the classroom. School administrators, social workers and even officers from the district’s police department made phone calls and at-home visits to reach as many families as possible, Gonzalez-Diego said.

“As a result of these efforts, we reduced the number of no-show students to 4,100 by Sept. 3,” she said in an email Saturday. “Since that date, nearly 2,300 additional students have enrolled.”

The number of truly unaccounted-for children, according to the district, is now 635, Gonzalez-Diego said.

Not counting charter schools, about 334,000 students attend Miami-Dade County Public Schools.

In Broward, officials planned to engage in more at-home visits to reach parents and guardians on Sunday as well. The district has also been calling families on the list, Cartwright said.

“It’s extremely timely. We want our students back in their seats as soon as possible. Every day they’re at home is a day they’re not being successful,” she said. “And, we want them back with us, to reengage with us, and we can help them support them to their future success.”